| Dodece said: @mibauokami Whether the strategy will ultimately work out for Sony is somewhat irrelevant. Right now the situation is what it is. I suppose you may be arguing future prospects may justify some verbose design choices, but that isn't exactly a safe coarse of action. Which is the crux of what I am saying. Without the large influx of capitol Sony generated prior to the launch of the PS3 the company would have become severely over extended on the up front losses. To go at it another way they sold a lot of things to have money to bring their console to fruition. Sony has insinuated that they were not happy with what transpired financially, and do not intend to have a repeat of what happened this generation. Where they felt compelled to loss lead into a massive money pit. That said they are not exactly going to be acting in a vacuum. If the other two competitors through their choices move the field then Sony may be compelled to oblige. So in the final analysis instead of the hypothetical sale now, it could be a real sale just prior to the next launch, or after the next launch depending on what happens. I am just interested in the hypothetical sense what the money would mean sooner rather then later. In fact it may lead to better decision making if it comes earlier in the development cycle. That could give Sony more control over its own strategy. Better to be acting rather then reacting. |
Of course Sony cannot repeat a PS3 fiasco. The loss this gen Sony expirience was staggering, what I'm explaining is that the current financial report is an exceptional circumstances and cannot be considered the norm when doing future projection.
Sony expirience its worse lost in 16 years, with the biggest contributing factor being the Japan quake. (which would have been much worse if Howard hadn't started Sony on the globalisation of its industry). Before Stringer step onboard Sony's manufacturing was almost all centralised in Japan, it now outsource gobally more than 45% of its manufactoring. It's mobile phone and gaming division both began turning profit and its sale in TV increased by 44%.
These aren't the signs of a dying company, nor is their a threat of bankruptcy due to liquidity risk. They're hurting, and hurting bad, but there is no mandate to selling a portion of there business. Especially since they are pushing 3D tv so hard recently and the leverage that comes from being a big motion picture studio.
Given the above, I don't feel that a 2 billion dollar windfall for SCEI would be much fo a strategic asset at all. Their studio lineup is the most plump out of all 3 console manufactorer, they retain a fairly diverse core audience with appreciation for all genres and they are a global brand with stronge link to many country that MS cannot reach due to the stigma of being an 'Amercian product'.
What Sony lacks at the moment is an attractive service, they are too hardware oriented and came into the service side of the console bussiness late when compare to Microsoft. This is not something you can just throw money at and see result. This requires strategic thinking and empathy to target audiences, something Sony seems to always hit and miss.
Give the 2 billion windfall something more needy. The game division has finally began working right again in the past year.
